In lasts week’s blog I mentioned I had never met anyone who would turn down a BLT. That was a false statement; I alienated a large group of people, vegetarians. This week I am going to address those of the veggie loving orientation.

My favorite vegetarian dish is spaghetti al crudo. It is a very simple dish to create, during the course of the summer I prepared over a thousand of them, so I have come to perfect the dish.  

In Italian al crudo means, lightly cooked, or raw. So basically it is a dish where the vegetables are lightly cooked which allows them to retain their natural flavours.

All one needs to prepare this dish is cherry tomatoes, or whole tomatoes quartered (cut into fourths, for those like me who are bad at math), black olives, red onion and garlic.

Those are the main ingredients; One also needs a tomato sauce of any kind, white wine (for cooking) olive oil and lemon juice (concentrate or freshly squeezed). One cannot forget the pasta. During my summer we had freshly made pasta, which I know is hard to find unless you have a pasta machine or roller.

You can find some very good pasta in the grocery store. Anything from whole wheat, to vegan varieties, are available in most stores.

The preparation of this dish is very simple.

 Since the dish takes very little time to prepare, I would start off boiling water and putting the pasta in the water (once it is boiling). Different brands take longer than others, so read the instructions.

This dish takes about five minutes to finish, so once your pasta is about that far away start by putting olive oil in a skillet. Next add your veggies, crush the olives to get maximum flavour. You can add other veggies of your choice and any amount of each.

Once you are satisfied with the amount of sautéing, everything should be sizzling and not yet browned. Add the garlic, and just like last week, mince the garlic as good as you can. Garlic takes about 90 seconds to burn on high heat so you can sauté it for about 45 seconds.

Add the wine- this is called deglazing the pan. If by chance you have browned or slightly burnt anything the wine will release it off the pan. Let the alcohol burn off, then add your tomato sauce, reduce for a while then add lemon juice.

Strain your noodles and add them to your sauce. Mix well, plate and eat. You can even have a glass of the wine you used to deglaze. Enjoy!

For more on food next week I am Robert Thomas.